1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of providing end-user help for information technologies. Unlike conventional methods in which such help is provided either by having a dedicated staff or expecting the user to perform self-help, the present invention may allow a user to leverage a social network to get help from someone other than a dedicated staff.
2. Description of the Related Art
Telephones are being used in novel and diverse manners. Whereas once the phone was a mechanism for calling a single person, today phones are used to call into teleconferences, to retrieve voice mail, to page people, and to retrieve information such as train schedules or stock portfolio information. Moreover, as more and more applications become voice enabled, the phone will become an even more important end-user device.
However, one of the primary problems with using the phone as such an application device is the extremely constrained user interface. When some exceptional condition occurs in the course of a telephone session, there is little that the end-user can do, other than hang up and try again. Most telephony applications therefore include the ability to “escape out” of the session and connect with a help desk operator.
Thus, such a conventional system and method require that the organization hosting the service provide help-desk personnel to answer these requests for help. This represents a costly amount of overhead for such applications, and may prohibit many such telephony applications from being deployed.